


Anything Frail, Anything Wild

by marginalia



Category: Strangers in Paradise
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-07-27
Updated: 2004-07-27
Packaged: 2018-10-06 23:01:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10346541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginalia/pseuds/marginalia





	

Katchoo has to go. She really does. She has to get away from Houston, from her mother, from _him_. She's got to go. She'll go to Columbus. She's been planning it for a long time, planning without knowing she was planning, always unconsciously spinning a contingency scheme.

So now she's going. There's no room for change.

And it's just at that point, of course, that things _do_. That's always the way it works. She meets Francine (finally, after hovering around the idea of her) and things change so fast her head spins. Some things are the same, the big things she has to get away from. Johnny's still the same, her mother's still the same, _he's_ still the same, but Francine is new. And something in Francine makes something in Katchoo new, too.

Francine does something to her, turns off the internal censor or whatever the fuck you want to call it, and she just rambles like. Well. Like she's Francine. They're laughing and talking out the window like they're in some bad teen movie and for a few mad moments she thinks about asking Francine to come along, to follow her away from the white picket fence, away from the house where everyone pretends like crazy that it's all the same and perfect. Francine on the back of the motorcycle, eyes squeezed shut, arms clinging tight, laughing in Katchoo's ear. Hair flying back, dark and light tangling together.

But. No.

Francine's house hasn't fallen apart yet, but it's bound to, and it feels right to come there after, because Francine is used to cracks and so if Katchoo shatters a little bit, it'll be all right.

Well. It'll never be all right. But they'll get through it. And curled up in Francine's arms Katchoo wonders when she started thinking "they". Even though Francine is soft and sweet and everything she wants right then she knows she has to go. She has to go until she's everything Francine will want.

The motorcycle is clinging and singing to the road, she's flying north, she's broken, she's setting herself free.

She made a promise. She'll be back.


End file.
